Andrew Dobson and David Hayes have an interesting article in Open Democracy, entitled: A politics of crisis: low-energy cosmopolitanism. It starts by warning that the current crisis is not necessarily a boon to the left, which is fair enough. It then goes on with a critique of localism, which I believe is misguided. Though there… Continue reading
Date archives "October 2008"
P2P Solar Energy will create a value crisis for the electricity providers
Will P2P do to the utilities, what it has already done to the proprietary software and porn industry, i.e. substantially weaken it? Robert X. Cringely thinks so: “The result of this relentless application of Moore’s Law to the solar industry is that we can see a time in that near future when the cost of… Continue reading
An infrastructure to protect free E-Speech
Aram Sinnreich and Masha Zager have written an excellent overview article that describes the dangers to free digital speech. Amongst the danger listed and described are: * Searches without warrant * Network Neutrality * Asymmetrical Internet Access *Walled Garden approaches They then discuss counter-strategies, dismissing the first one as impractical at the present stage, presumable… Continue reading
Carlota Perez at TTU (Part I): “The theory of great surges”
I was blessed to attend Carlota Perez’s two weeks intensive lectures titled “Technical Change, Techno-Economic Paradigms and Changing Opportunities for Development” held at the Technological University of Tallinn. In a series of posts I will try to summarize the basic ideas and theories that are also explained in detail in her brilliant book “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital” published… Continue reading
VideoBridge, international version
The following short Video was produced last year to showcase the first experiences with VideoBridge, a simple methodology to share educational content between institutions. The idea this leads to is to encourage these educational institutions – especially those in rural areas, but not only them – to share and record the best they have to… Continue reading
Ethics, Finance and Crisis,
(an excerpt from the Ethical Economy book, sneak preview at www.ethicaleconomy.com) These might seem like three terms picked at random. However I would like to suggest that beyond its direct, contingent causes, the current financial crisis is a symptom of the emergence of a new economic system, where value is increasingly based on ethical factors,… Continue reading
How The People Formerly Known as the Employers are exploiting ‘free’ media workers
As Eben Moglen once said, peer production is the wet dream of both capitalists and communists. In my interpretation this means: as the possibilities for non-alienated voluntary participation in common projects increases, so does its use as free labour for for-profit companies. Mark Deuze has an interesting analysis of how this is being played out… Continue reading
Current status and difficulties of consumer-driven design
Matt Sinclair of the We don’t do retro blog has been interviewed by Duann Scott for Ponoko’s blog. In one of the questions of this interesting interview, Matt gives a good feeling for the concrete difficulties facing self-produced designs and 3D printing. Matt Sinclair on the current limitations of customer-driven design: “There are two main… Continue reading
Discussing programmable money
Marc Fawzi of the Evolving Trends blog proposes a discussion of a civil-society engineered programmable money. Join us to discuss whether this is a desirable and/or feasible propostion. The proposal was also published on his blog. To participate, go here in our Ning Forum.
Sustainability Issues of Virtual Worlds
A comprehensive literature and issue review of the ecological disruption caused by maintaining resource-hungry virtual worlds such as Second Life, by Leigh Blackall. Worth reading in full as it refers to the blogosphere discussions on the topic, as well as to significant articles. An excerpt: “Indirect impacts of Second Life on sustainability issues relate more… Continue reading
We need to open source intentional geo-engineering
I am not calling for geoengineering as the solution to global warming. We know nowhere near enough to make (re)terraforming a plausible or safe option. Our best pathway to avoiding climate disaster remains the rapid reduction and elimination of anthropogenic greenhouse gases. But I am calling for us to learn more about geotechnologies. Like it… Continue reading
RiP: an open source documentary on Remix Culture and its Copyright implications
Via: “”In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But… Continue reading
PureDyne a Linux Distro for Artists by Artists
Pure:Dyne is a GNU/Linux live distribution by artists for artists. A recent discussion on NetBehaviour looks at the history of the distro and at some of the issues facing media artists working with FLOSS. “Marc invited two team members of the GOTO10 collective, Heather Corcoran and Aymeric Mansoux to discuss about pure:dyne on the Netbehaviour.org… Continue reading
P2P Spirituality Interview
New Digital South, a seemingly South-Asian oriented e-government site, though located in Sweden, has conducted an extensive interview which covers the topics that are familiar to the readers of this blog. Interviewer was Bimah Shah. The site has 8 other interviews which you can find here. But there were a number of original questions regarding… Continue reading
The WIR Economic Circle Cooperative in Switzerland: a status report
WIR is a regional currency in Switzerland, existing since the 1930’s. Excerpt from a long and lively report by Susan Witt, of the E. F. Schumacher Society, who recently visited Switzerland. Susan Witt: “At the moment I’m visiting in Switzerland and wanted to report to you on use of WIR, a regional currency in Switzerland… Continue reading
A cultural critique of Second Life
…the Sim series, like all other educational software, ignore other forms of cultural storage and renewal – such as elder knowledge and the need to develop symbolic forms of expression (music, dance, narrative, ceremony) that do not diminish the processes of Nature… [M]aking decisions that involve the use of modern technologies leaves the students without… Continue reading